TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MAY 13
1568 Mary Queen of Scots was defeated at the Battle of Langside and immediately fled to North England.
1607 English colonists land near the James River in Virginia.
1648 Margaret Jones of Plymouth is found guilty of witchcraft and is sentenced to be hanged.
1821 The first practical printing press was patented in the U.S. by Samuel Rust.
1830 Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president
1846 The United States declares war on Mexico after fighting has already begun.
1861 Britain declares its neutrality in the American Civil War.
1865 The last land engagement of the American Civil War was fought at the Battle of Palmito Ranch in far south Texas, more than a month after Gen. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, VA.
1888 Slavery is abolished in Brazil.
1938 Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded the New Orleans’s jazz classic, When the Saints Go Marching In, on Decca Records.
1940 Igor Sikorsky pilots his VS-300 helicopter’s maiden flight
1940 Winston Churchill says “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears & sweat” in his first speech as Prime Minister to British House of Commons
1947 In Germany calls have been made for urgent assistance in the American Zone and the British Zone as residents in both areas are now suffering with severe shortages of food which is causing mass starvation, this is in turn causing antagonism and resentment to America and England.
1950 The first Formula One World Championship season kicks off
1968 Peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam begin in Paris.
1968 800,000 teachers, workers and student protesters marched through the French capital during a one day general strike demanding the fall of the government under Charles de Gaulle and to protest police brutality during the riots of the past few days.
1981 Pope John Paul II survives an assassination attempt.
1985 Philadelphia Police Department drop a bomb containing C-4 and Tovex from a helicopter onto MOVE’s residence part of a row of tenements on Osage Avenue, the explosion started an uncontrolled fire and as a result, 53 houses burned and 240 people were left homeless.
1988 Iraq bombed and destroyed 2 of the worlds largest supertankers in the Southern Persian Golf loading oil in the Iranian offshore loading terminal of Larak. This is seen as a further escalation of the 7 1/2 year war between Iraq and Iran.
1989 Approx 2,000 students begin hunger strike in Tiananmen Square, China
1999 In Moscow, the impeachment of Russian President Boris Yeltsin began.
2010 Police arrested thirty-three people as they uncovered a drug smuggling operation running out of a convent in Piacenza, Italy, near Milan. The smugglers arranged pilgrimages to South America, in which the “pilgrims” would smuggle cocaine in their prayer books.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
